Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Lingering Items--Winter Doldrums Edition

When the Super Bowl ends sometime
around 10 p.m. EDT this Sunday it will mark not just the end of a
very curious but interesting football season. It is also will mark
the beginning of the dullest period of the sports season.

Fortunately, the dull times don’t
last too long as it’s at most a few weeks until major league teams
report to spring training. Until then, though, you have time to
catch up on Mad Men before the next season starts in March or waste
your time with meaningless games in whatever sport you follow.

The Ohio State Buckeyes men’s
basketball team, talented and athletic and a real contender for a
national championship, have a difficult schedule ahead over the last
half of their regular season, but the presence of a Big Ten
tournament and the knowledge that the Buckeyes will be in the NCAA
tournament come March render these upcoming games mildly interesting
and overwhelmingly irrelevant, like the Plain Dealer on a good day.

Far worse, though, is the NBA season
and not just because the Cavaliers are still in the early stages of a
major rebuild which, if history is any indication, is a minimum 8
year process. If there are any NHL fans in this area, and I suppose
there probably are a few, nothing much interesting happens this time
of year, either. Like the NBA, more teams make the playoffs then
should and only a few teams really have a chance of taking the crown.
That much was known months ago and not much has changed in the
interim.

So what we’re left with for the next
few weeks is to engage in postseason speculation when it comes to the
Browns, preseason bitching when it comes to the Indians and in season
indifference when it comes to the Cavs.

**

Let’s start with the Cavs. With
them, the current mostly boring debate surrounds whether or not the
team should just continue on a losing path for the rest of the season
in order to secure a better draft pick. Right now, the Cavs would
make the playoffs and wouldn’t make the lottery. It’s a
situation known as NBA purgatory. There are only a few teams with a
legitimate chance to make the NBA Finals. There are a few others
that are close to that level and thus would likely benefit from the
seasoning that the NBA playoffs bring. The rest of the teams though
are just spinning their wheels in the most unproductive manner
possible in purgatory.

There is no good that could come from
the Cavs making the playoffs this season. They are simply too far
away to reap any tangible benefit from playing in the postseason.
If/when the Cavs are able to cobble together enough pieces and parts
to make a far more legitimate run, most of the players on the current
team will be playing elsewhere. In other words, getting playoff
experience under their belts, to the extent that matters, won’t
benefit the Cavs anyway.

All that said, of course, it’s
ridiculous to think about tanking an entire NBA season. Professional
athletes for the most part are imbued with a strong sense of pride
and competitiveness. They may know their team sucks, but when the
whistle blows they still tend to play hard if only because they don’t
want to be embarrassed.

There are notable exceptions to this of
course. The Cavs, for example, have had rosters full of players that
mailed it in for millions a year. But this Cavs roster isn’t of
that ilk. They aren’t talented enough to compete at the highest
levels but neither are they jaded enough to spend the rest of the
season going through the motions.

I don’t think that fans need to worry
anyway. Water finds its level and for this Cavs team, that’s
somewhere far closer to the ceiling then the upper floors. The
lottery looks secure for another season.

**

The Indians, on the other hand, are
about to embark on another gun fight once again wielding a dull
knife. They spent another offseason gathering spare parts and broken
hearts through barter while the key competition around them acquired
assets with cash.

It’s to their detriment but not their
fault that they didn’t acquire Prince Fielder and his expanding
waist line. It was an ill advised move by the Detroit Tigers. But
it does emphasize why the Indians will always fall short of filling
the gaps they need. They are essentially playing in a different
league when it comes to better financed teams.

The acquisition of Fielder by the
Tigers is interesting because it somewhat dispels the notion of small
market vs. big market teams. I don’t think of Detroit as a big
market anymore although that tide could be turning along with the
fortunes of the auto industry. They're just a small market with a big
market thinking owner.

That said, I don’t recommend that any
team, least of all the Indians, overpay someone like Fielder who
looks like he took training tips from an online consortium run by CC
Sabathia and Dinner Bell Mel Turpin. The contract the Tigers
committed to for Fielder will be a bigger millstone around their neck
then the Travis Hafner contract has been around the Indians’.

I fully expect that Fielder will have
some good numbers for the next year or two and some of that will come
at the expense of the Indians as they try to claw back into
relevance. But come years 6, 7, 8 and 9, if not years 3, 4 and 5,
someone in Detroit is going to lose his job for green lighting
Project Fielder for $200+ million.

Meanwhile, back at the corner of
Carnegie and Ontario, the Indians are putting on their usual
offseason flourish designed to systematically lower expectations as
part of their overriding goal each year to under promise and over
deliver.

Indeed that’s why last season felt
like such a revelation. With nothing promised, the Indians easily
exceeded expectations. The problem is that with the limited bit of a
success comes the implied obligation to further upgrade. Instead
fans received the same warmed over players that can be had on the
cheap as they rehab from injuries. About the only thing different
from any number of seasons past is that the Indians applied that same
criteria to one of their own, Grady Sizemore.

The key word in every Indians’
offseason is “if,” as in, “if Grady Sizemore can stay healthy”
or “if Kevin Slowey can stay healthy” or, well, you get the
picture. But as we know full well by not, most of the “ifs”
become “buts” and the Indians, by virtue of their inaction, will
again be scrambling to develop other revenue sources besides the more
traditional route of good play-inspired attendance. And the circle
goes unbroken.

**

The Browns have underwhelmed thus far
in the off season, but it’s early. They're is still time to
massively disappoint. The only move of consequence was the addition
of failed former head coach Brad Childress as the offensive
coordinator.

But like most things that happen in
Berea, it looks like it will come with the odd condition in the form
of not allowing Childress to exercise the full benefits of his title
by being the team’s play caller. But perhaps Childress was chosen
exactly for that reason. As Andy Reid's offensive coordinator in
Philadelphia, Childress didn't call plays then either.

Still, it smacks of a compromise
reached between head coach Pat Shurmur and his boss, team president
Mike Holmgren. Shurmur doesn’t appear to want to relinquish what
little power he has and Holmgren needs to quell a fan insurrection
over the awful state of the offense. Who better to step in and play
the part of a well paid patsy then another client of both Shurmur’s
and Holmgren’s and Tom Heckert's agent, Bob Lamonte, the out of
work Childress?

Like most compromises of this nature,
its structure suggests failure and not success. If the Browns need
an offensive coordinator, and they do, then hire one and let him do
the job. The last thing this team needs is another consultant, which
is what Childress essentially has signed on for.

This is the kind of thing that really
is starting to grate on the nerves of fans when it comes to Holmgren.
Brought in to make tough decisions, he continuously backs away at
the sign of any internal resistance. He kept Eric Mangini on for a
year because Mangini literally pleaded to Holmgren to spare him the
ax. It was nice for Mangini but awful for the fans and the progress
of the franchise.

When he brought in Shurmur, who hadn’t
been a head coach at any level, Holmgren allowed Shurmur to control
the narrative by suggesting that he could handle both head coaching
duties and the job of first assistant. It only sounds reasonable if
the Browns were trying to cut costs on the number of assistants, but
then when have the Browns ever been on that kind of austerity plan?
They trend in the opposite direction, doling out money to meaningless
coaches long since gone.

Armed with empirical proof that Shurmur
(or any head coach) is ill suited to do the job of two coaches at
once, Holmgren nonetheless again backed away from forcing Shurmur to
relinquish some control. This can only mean more of the same for
next year. If Childress lasts the entire season under this construct
I’ll be amazed.

As for upgrading the roster, the first
thing the Browns need to decide is which of their free agents they
want to pursue. It would seem like D’Qwell Jackson and Phil Dawson
are layups. More interesting is running back Peyton Hillis. Heckert
is now leaking it to the media that the Browns do want Hillis back.

Hillis, when healthy, is exactly the
kind of running back most teams need these days. While the presence
of a running game is still important to the overall effectiveness of
an offense, attitudes have changed on exactly what a presence means.
There can be no doubt, for example, that a team does not need a
Walter Peyton or a Barry Sanders to be successful. Quick, name me
the starting running backs for the New England Patriots and the New
York Giants.

Hillis is exactly the kind of effective
no-name player that most teams look to have on board, as long as he
doesn't cost too much. His problem is that he is injury-prone. He
plays football like Grady Sizemore plays baseball and it leads to
more injuries and less effectiveness.

The injuries have hurt Hillis’
bargaining power, but not in the same way they hurt Sizemore’s.
Because there’s very little guaranteed money in the NFL, the
chances are much better that a team would be willing to sign Hillis
to a long-term contract. Sizemore couldn’t sniff anything more
than the one-year deal the Indians offered him.

If Hillis is lost to free agency, it
won’t be a major blow. I like his game, but he’s fungible with
backs like Chris Ogbonnaya, a point that will become more evident
when the Browns develop a better right side of the offensive line and
employ credible receivers. At that point they’ll become far more
pass oriented, like the rest of the league, with just a dash of
running thrown in to keep teams honest.

**

The other Browns story that remains in
the background concerns the fate of former Plain Dealer beat reporter
Tony Grossi. The PD’s public editor, Ted Diadiun, gave a rather
farcical account of what he termed a painful but necessary decision
to demote Grossi, as I anticipated in my earlier column on this
subject.

Diadiun pulled out the old “standards”
card and essentially suggested that it wasn’t Grossi’s views of
Browns owner Randy Lerner that got him in trouble but the fact that
he expressed them publicly. Apparently the Plain Dealer discourages
its sports reporters from having opinions.

Diadiun is making a distinction without
a difference. Irrespective of whether Grossi expressed the opinion
publicly, the fact of the matter is that he didn’t respect Lerner
and that didn’t seem to matter to the PD until Grossi said it out
loud.

And for what it’s worth, I’m not
buying the whole “inadvertent tweet” defense Grossi offered in
order to save his job. Maybe Grossi did mean to respond only
privately but the fact remains that he didn’t and it doesn’t
matter anyway. Whether he made his views of Lerner known publicly or
privately is irrelevant. He held the opinion and it did impact in
some fashion on his coverage. That isn’t a sin because every
reporter has an opinion on his subject matter and many times it isn’t
favorable. So be it.

Indeed, I think it’s cowardly for
Grossi to try and hide behind a defense that relies on the phrase
“inadvertent tweet”, two words that shouldn’t ever be uttered
consecutively, by the way. He feels that way, he said it, end of
story. But even more cowardly is the journalistic yarn the PD is
hiding behind in order to assuage the feelings of a pathetic and
irrelevant billionaire and his ineffective and weak first lieutenant.

The Plain Dealer demonstrated, to the
detriment of the rest of its staff, that when the going gets tough,
the reporters get tossed.

**

With the Super Bowl upcoming and Bill
Belichick further affirming his status as one of the all time great
head coaches in NFL history comes this week’s question to ponder:
When Art Modell hired Belichick, he said it would be the last head
coach he’d ever hire. If Modell has stuck to it, would he now be
in the Hall of Fame?

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

As a Tigers' fan, GB, you've got the Fielder thing nailed pretty well. His daddy hit some moon shots in the day but faded quickly, soon striking out 10 times for every tater. I like the effort but, as the eternal pessimist, I have not bought any 2012 World Series souvenirs yet. I hope he pays off, at least in the short run. Somebody's got to buy about 40 million Little Caesar's pizzas to help us out!